Automotive Artwork

It is always said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and like art aficionados everywhere, many auto enthusiasts publicize their passion—for their personal car, or one they may idolize, as well as their zeal for motorsports—through paintings, sculpture and other forms of expressions that can be characterized as art. Displaying these valuable and personal tributes is a perfect way to depict a favorite moment, a special memory, forever.


Art, therefore, is best captured by those who understand the pathos of its purpose—to provide a source of pleasure and value to both the creator and the consumer. The number of individuals—artists—who work in, or contribute to, the field of automotive art is staggering. And the range is infinite, cars in perfect scale, or proportion; some depicted as if they were a slightly retouched photograph. Other pieces represent significant moments in motorsports, historical recollections of the greatest accomplishments of man and machine. Still many more show classic cars in gorgeous poses, juxtaposed against illustrations of similar vehicles presented in neglected forms, positioned next to dilapidated barns or submerged in snow banks. These images can be in extreme detail or abstract in nature, the latter visualizing red swooshes searing across a canvas, taillights disappearing in a blur of colors representing racing prototypes screaming down the Mulsanne Straight (pre-chicane). And a few highlight fantasy as format—Enzo Ferrari as the God of Cardom, reaching out to touch a mortal blessed with ownership of one of "His" cars.


Art is deeply personal. Car, or vehicle, ownership to many is all about individual expression, and choice. It's one thing to purchase a poster, a road sign or a die-cast car, but fine art—that which is best created by oil, inks, pens, pencils, through watercolor, clay or metal—whatever medium desired—is something treasured forever; an heirloom as cherished and perhaps as valuable as anything created by other masters—Picasso, Renoir, Van Gogh, and more recently, Hopper, Lichtenstein, Warhol.


In any auto enthusiast's home, it's likely works by such names as Watts, Eberts, Neal, Wood, Dallison, Owens, Nakoaka, Klee and Cleworth, adorn one's walls. Triumphs and tragedies are represented. Cars grace landscapes, complement roadside diners, head toward the Arizona desert, corner in anger at Silverstone and stand proudly, even arrogantly, against a Portofino backdrop.


The fact that so many automotive artists exist is a testament to the demand for, and appreciation of, their respective bodies of work. Automotive publications share their contributions; galleries and museums display their originals; and racetracks, concours d'elegance and studios sell their lithographs, numbered prints and selected ceramics. Like many talented individuals, the artists themselves are somewhat elusive, choosing to make appearances as often as the late Howard Hughes; some by strategy, some out of social abstinence, others because of time constraints and alternate demands.